


All the King's Horses

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Bad Things Bingo 2018 [13]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Autistic!Mac, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Beating, Brain Damage, Broken Bones, Caregiving, Comfort is at the end, Hallucinations, Horses, Hostage Situation, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Jack is a good bro, Mac is extremely resilient, Needles, Realistic aftermath of torture, References to Child Abuse, References to dieting, Severe psychological distress, Solitary Confinement, Square filled: Prisoner exchange, Starvation, Waterboarding, but being resilient only gets you so far, internalized ableism, non-consensual medical care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 00:49:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19819114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: Mac trades himself for Riley but rescue comes much later than expected.





	All the King's Horses

**Author's Note:**

> MIND THE TAGS. This is your warning.
> 
> Also, I will accept ZERO torture apologia about this fic. I take a hardline stance that all of the included tortures are unacceptable in ANY situation. Any comments arguing otherwise will be deleted without response. I am, however, willing to answer questions as they pertain to the content of the story. 
> 
> Please see end notes for spoilery clarifications.
> 
> Acknowledgements: Thank you to [Secret_Library98](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secret_Library98) and [altschmerzes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/altschmerzes/pseuds/altschmerzes) for their help pulling this together.

The ransom video arrives at two in the morning to an unsecured email account that The Phoenix Foundation was told to set up for this purpose. Mac watches it twice before he actually hears the words that Riley’s saying; at first, all he registers is the way her voice cracks, the tears that drip off her cheeks, one of them black from bruising.

“Mac, you can’t honestly be considering it.”

Mac shakes himself out of his thoughts and drops another paperclip creation onto the pile. “What else is there? We don’t have Riley’s skills to help us figure out where she is and without that she’s as good as dead if we don’t make a deal.”

Jack rubs his hands on his face. “Yes, okay, I get your point. But then once they get you, you’re as good as dead. I’m not sure that trading one life for another is an actual solution here, Mac.”

“So I just sit by and let the deadline pass, knowing what they’re going to do? Not even try?” Mac’s shouting now and he knows it’s not fair because everyone there wants the same thing, but they’re not the ones whose fault it will be when Riley’s dead in a hole somewhere.

“I get that, man. I want Riley home, too, but giving you to them, man, what’re they gonna do when they’re done with you? Kill you, too? How’s that fix anything?” Bozer says. 

“I know, Boze, okay? But Riley isn’t equipped to get herself out of there, I’ll have a better chance. Plus, I can’t do anything that a team of regular scientists can’t do. If they want a bomb, there are better ways to get it than kidnapping me. But Riley designed half the systems at Phoenix — she can’t hold up to torture and interrogation forever, she’s not trained for it. And a whole lot of people will be in danger. Ignoring the potential cost of my life or hers, the tactically sound position is a trade. Tell me I’m wrong.”

No one does.

*****

_See, the thing about prisoner exchanges is that you can never really be sure what someone wants you for. We thought that they wanted me for intel or bomb design, but it turns out to be much less sophisticated: revenge._

Mac gasps and his abs flex. If he weren’t tied to a wall, he’d double over on himself to protect his stomach, but tied as he is, he focuses on breathing before he passes out. If he loses consciousness and his muscles go slack, he can’t protect his internal organs.

His feet scrabble against the cold, damp concrete. The buzzing of the fluorescent lights makes the ringing in his ears seem deafening, and the way the lights flicker drives ice picks into his head. The overload hurts almost as much as the beating, just in a different way. 

He knows he’s screaming, but he can’t hear it over the buzzing in his ears. He doesn’t remember the faces of his attackers even though he did his best to memorize them for when rescue comes. 

Blow after blow after blow lands until Mac feels one, then two ribs snap. They’re low, no chance of a punctured lung. Mac counts it as a blessing.

He focuses on breathing and mentally goes over changing the faulty ballasts in the fluorescent light fixtures, something he’s been able to do since he was old enough to strip a wire. It’s simple. It’s easy. Just breathe.

*****

_Waterboarding has been around a lot longer than most people think. The first recorded use dates back to the Spanish Inquisition in the 1500s. People who were suspected of heresy — Jews, Muslims, pagans of any variety, scientists, and the list goes on — many of them were subjected to waterboarding. These days, despite being billed as “enhanced interrogation,” the side-effects from this form of torture have not changed much in over 500 years. And in a setting where medical care is non-existent, the potential for fatal complications is high._

Mac knows that he’s crying but his tears are lost in the water that courses over his face. When Mac couldn’t do more than sag against his bonds, the beatings stopped for a few days. When they came back for him, it was only to strap him to a bench. 

His entire body twists, his wrists sliding in the leather straps. They’re buckled, no lock to pick and nothing to pick it with even if he could. The water burns in his lungs, his nose, his throat. And he knows he’s not dying — they’ve already demonstrated that they’re not willing to kill him, not yet anyway — but knowing that doesn’t override the primal fear of drowning.

When they’re done, they drag Mac to his cell. He’s exhausted and barely conscious, and when they toss Mac into the cell, he doesn’t quite right himself in time. The edge of his foot catches the rough concrete floor and rolls under him. He can’t hear the snap, but he can feel it, and pain lances up his leg. He wants to splint it, to use his shirt to wrap it, but he knows he can’t afford to spare his only insulation. 

Tired, hurting, and scared, Mac curls up on the bare floor and cries. His fingers flick back and forth involuntarily. It’s been years since he’s stimmed like this, years since he learned to channel it into something that didn’t piss off his dad. But there aren’t any paperclips in here. There’s nothing to busy his hands with anymore. 

He wants Bozer, his grandpa, his mom, Jack. He wants someone to touch him in a way that doesn’t hurt. But there’s no one coming for him but his captors. He tries to be grateful for every minute that he’s alone, but his chest aches in ways that have everything — and nothing — to do with the rattling cough in his chest from the water and the stabbing ache of his broken ribs.

*****

Riley shouts and slams her laptop shut as her long-simmering frustration boils over. 

“Riley?” Matty asks.

“I can’t. There’s nothing. I don’t know what they did, but the people we gave him to _don’t have him._ ”

“Well, someone does. People don’t just disappear into thin air. Check it again.”

Riley cocks her head to the side and glares. “You don’t think I’ve done that? Matty, that’s the seventeenth sat imagery pass in the last three days. I’ve hacked every satellite with the right equipment that’s currently in orbit. What do you want me to do? _Build one?_ ”

Matty sits down and this time her voice is softer. “Have you tried varying your search parameters?”

“Yes! I’ve used every search algorithm I know of to search every single piece of data, all the satellite telemetry info. I’ve got nothing. He’s not _there,_ Matty.”

“I know this is hard on you. It’s hard on everyone, Riley. But I need you to pull it together. We’ve got to keep looking.”

Riley deflates and nods. “I know. I’ve been at this for the last thirty-six hours. I need a break.”

Matty nods. “Drop off your laptop in Tech. They’ll keep searching. Go home and sleep. You’re doing your best and that’s all any of us, including Mac, can ask.”

Somehow, the validation stings more than her repeated failures. She’s crying before she can get out the door.

*****

_Fevers, like say the fever from untreated pneumonia, can cause hallucinations. Sometimes, you can tell when what you’re seeing isn’t real. Other times, not so much._

The door opens and Mac curls tighter in on himself. They can’t be back for another round so soon. They can’t. He’s burning up and hasn’t kept down anything in over day. He’ll die. 

He blinks up at the face looming over him and when he focuses, he realizes that it’s Jack.

“Jack,” he whispers.

Jack smiles and starts talking but Mac can’t hear him over the sound of one of the guards. 

Or rather, Jack sounds like one of the guards? He’s speaking some Eastern European language that Mac never could quite learn to differentiate. But Jack only speaks English, and apparently French, Dutch, and Russian. But this isn’t Russian because Mac knows enough Russian to realize none of these words are right. 

Mac feels his pants roughly pulled down and then someone injects him with something. He flinches and tries to roll away, but someone who isn’t Jack holds him. There are more injections, maybe four total, and then the door slams shut. 

It’s dark, but Jack just stands there smiling. Mac smiles back because he knew that Jack would come for him. Jack always comes for him.

*****

By what Mac assumes is morning, the hallucinations are gone. _Jack_ is gone. But then his fever is down, too. This time when the door opens, Mac realizes that the guards bring someone new. He’s clean, dressed in civilian clothes, and he carries a shoulder bag. 

When the man starts the injections, Mac doesn’t fight because if the man is trying to kill him, then fighting won’t help. If the man is giving Mac antibiotics, then fighting won’t help him either. 

Instead he lies there, doing his best to conserve his energy.

*****

Mac loses track of how many times the man comes to inject him, but he thinks it’s seven. By the end of the treatment, Mac knows he’s not going to die of pneumonia, at least not immediately. But his relief is tinged with disappointment because he misses Jack, even if he wasn’t really ever there.

*****

_For decades, the US diet industry has been telling Americans that a 1000 kcal diet is safe and healthy. Heck, even the Bush administration tried to argue that feeding detainees 1000 kcal per day was okay since people regularly diet at that level voluntarily. Unfortunately, whether you’re eating that little due to dieting or detainment, humans over the age of three aren’t made to survive on so little. In the long-term, the effects can be severe, even fatal._

The slot on the door bangs open and a tray slides into his cell. Mac startles and then scrambles for the food. With no windows and no lights in his cell — he lost those after his first three escape attempts — he has no way to gauge the passage of time. His best guess is that food comes once a day, but he can’t be sure. All he knows is that his entire existence is segmented into the times between feedings.

The food, which he eats slowly and deliberately despite his intense desire to eat it as fast as possible, is gross and congealed. But gross and congealed is better than rancid or mouldy, which is about half of what he gets. Sometimes he throws up afterwards. Sometimes it gives him diarrhea. He always eats it if he can stand the taste, though. 

When the bowl is empty, Mac curls up on himself to conserve what little body heat he can. It can’t be more than ten degrees Celsius and hasn’t had a blanket in weeks. Besides, his stomach always aches for hours after he eats. It’s easier this way. 

He tries not to think about how much weight he’s lost or the way his elbows, knees, and hips have pressure sores from the floor. He tries to shift position as often as possible, but his body just doesn’t have the padding to protect him anymore. With his ribs and ankle still broken, he can’t even rock properly, instead he just rubs his fingertips against the concrete, listening to the little scratchy noise it makes and humming softly.

Shivering, he closes his eyes and thinks of Jack. It won’t be long before they come. Probably tomorrow. He just has to hold out until tomorrow.

*****

“Alright people, listen up. It’s been three weeks. We have no sign of Mac or any indication that he’s still alive. Oversight has reassigned us.” 

Jack, Riley, and Bozer all begin shouting at once and Matty holds up her hands.

“Yes, that means that we have field work unrelated to Mac’s recovery. It does not mean that we will be giving up. We still can, at our discretion, spend one-hundred percent of our free time running down any and all leads with Phoenix funding. But we have to be honest with ourselves, after the first forty-eight hours passed, our chances of recovering Mac alive went down by fifty percent. After the first week, it went down ninety percent. No one wants to give up, but there are pressing matters — of both national and global security — and those are more important than any one of our lives, even Mac’s. I’m sorry. The choice was not mine and I didn’t agree to it, but I have my orders.”

Matty looks tired, and if her eyes are little red, well, it’s nothing that they can’t figure out on their own. No one likes this, but they can only hold out hope for so long. She’ll let them decide what that timeline is for themselves, because it shouldn’t be up to anyone to tell them to stop looking. She’s sure as hell not going to stop trying.

*****

_Solitary confinement seems innocuous enough. If no one is beating you or starving you, then in theory, you should be fine. But as it turns out, there are numerous physical and psychological effects, all of which are compounded by abuse, starvation, and lack of medical care._

It’s not long after the tray slides through the door that the tapping starts again. Other than the muffled voices and footsteps outside the door, it’s all he ever hears. For a while, it was hard to make out and he thought the tapping was random — maybe a pipe in the wall knocking, maybe a rat in a service void somewhere. But the longer he’s listened, the clearer the sound becomes. 

Slowly, he gets up from the floor and moves to the wall where he can hear it best. It’s near pitch black, but even so Mac closes his eyes and rocks softly, his fingers flicking against the palms of his hands. It’s like listening to a conversation in slow-motion — the dots and dashes resolving into words and then sentences. 

Mac knows it’s a hallucination, and it’s a damned convincing one. But it’s soothing. Notes from home that Jack sends him sometimes. Little snippets of conversation. And some days, when he’s lucky, he can hear Jack whispering. He’s not there. No one’s ever really there. But it feels real. It feels _good_ and so very little feels good here. 

He lets himself enjoy it, tapping back, adding in his part of the conversation. Jack always answers.

*****

_In any confinement situation, it can be hard to differentiate between people who mean you harm and people who_ may _provide help in certain scenarios. The problem is compounded when A) sometimes the same people do both, and B) you can’t understand what anyone is saying._

Yelling wakes Mac from his almost-sleep. Two men with guns open the door to his cell and begin demanding _something_ that Mac isn’t quite sure of. After a brief radio consult, the pair throws a bag over his head, grab him by the arms, and begin dragging him. 

This is new and the best that Mac can tell is that his situation has changed and not for the better. These men have automatic weapons, a far cry from the batons and occasional side-arms of the guards that populate this facility. There is a non-zero possibility that he’s going to be executed. The thought grows in his mind, and in an instant he’s in full panic mode.

His ankle, though largely healed, is crooked and doesn’t provide him speed or stability. He tries to lash out, but at the speed with which he’s frog-marched through the facility, he just stumbles, only to be hefted again to his feet. He’s weak, tired, and uncoordinated. When they throw him in the back of a transport truck and tie him up, Mac has no choice but to lie there and wait.

*****

The truck rumbles down unpaved roads for what feels like hours until Mac hears the sounds of civilization. He can’t imagine why they’ve brought him into a town and he braces himself. While he’s been curled up on the floor, he managed to pull a loose nail from the floorboards of the transport truck. He palms it with the hope that it won’t be noticed. Maybe, given enough time, he can acquire something else, maybe he could escape. Fighting his way out isn’t really an option anymore. 

Finally, the truck lurches to a stop and he hears the flaps of the truck open. This time they’re speaking Russian, or something close enough that he can pick out a few cognates. Still, it’s not enough to understand what’s happening, at least not before he’s thrown out of the truck and onto the ground. 

He stifles a shout when his shoulder slams into the concrete, and he grips the nail as tightly as he can. Panicked voices begin shouting and then there are hands all over him — picking at the ropes, pulling at the bag. As soon as the bag comes off, the light is blinding. He hasn’t been in anything more than weak fluorescent lighting for ages, and even that was only every so often once they lost interest in hurting him regularly.

He waits until his hands have been untied and then forces his eyes open. The light makes his head throb and his fingers twitch. As soon as he can make out his surroundings, Mac seizes the opportunity and scrambles to his feet, palming a cell phone off one of the many green-clad technicians around him. His new captors hold out their hands and shout, but he knows he might not get another chance at escape. He needs to call in for exfil, he needs to get word to Matty that he’s still alive. He can end this. 

But as he limps down the road, pebbles digging painfully into his bare feet, Mac realizes he has no idea what the phone number to the Phoenix offices is. He can’t recall Jack’s either. Or Riley’s. Or Bozer’s. He dials blindly, praying that muscle memory will get the call through in time, but he gets the Russian equivalent of “this call cannot be completed as dialed.”

He turns down an alley and out of the corner of his eye he can see that they’re closing fast. _Think, think, think._ But there’s nothing to stop them. Nothing he can cobble together. His mind just blanks.

A few seconds later his bad foot catches a crack in the road and he goes down hard. A moment later, it’s all over. Hands press him into the asphalt giving him no chance to use his carefully stolen nail, then there’s a prick in his thigh, and everything slows until he can’t tell up from down. He blinks, loses time, and then loses consciousness altogether.

*****

The next thing that Mac can remember is waking up in a hospital bed. It’s the softest thing he can ever recall lying on. He blinks his eyes open and the jarring light of fluorescent bulbs makes him gag. He paws around the bed, looking for anything to tell him where he is, for any way to escape. But his exploratory groping leads him to other discoveries — an IV, an NG tube connected to a large bag of what appears to be enteric formula, EKG leads, and a boot on his ankle. The ankle in question throbs distantly, like a new break that’s being masked by painkillers. It’s a curious thing, but nothing terribly important. 

The most distressing thing he realizes is that he’s bald. He reaches up and pats his bald head and he can feel the scabs from the lice, the ones he scratched in his sleep when he was unable to restrain himself. Another thought crosses his mind and he peers under the gown. All of his pubic hair is gone, too. 

There’s nothing to indicate that he’s been assaulted, no pain, not even anything masked by the opiates in his system. He breathes for a moment to help him get a handle on the situation and manages to convince himself that it was a hygiene measure, nothing more. 

Overall, the situation seems to be a positive change, but Mac can’t be sure. He may be receiving medical treatment, but there’s still no sign of anyone from the Phoenix. For now, he’ll do his best to stay alert. Hopefully, answers will be forthcoming or he can recover enough to escape in the near future. Either way, he’s got a chance. It’s just a matter of making the best of it.

*****

The next time Mac wakes, the adrenaline is mostly abated. He can also feel the way the pain meds aren’t so strong. His head is clearer and the pain is a little stronger, but it’s still nothing like what he’s used to. 

In fact, the pain is entirely bearable, it’s the heightening of _everything else _that hurts. The new sensation of shaved skin, both on his head and in his groin, makes his skin crawl. The adhesive strips where the dressings cover his pressure sores pulls his skin no matter how little he moves. The gown itches. The blankets make a rustling sound against the plastic mattress protector. The fluorescent lights hum. The clock on the wall ticks. The light flickers. The room, the sheets, the gown, _everything_ smells like aneseptics. __

__He wants to scream to make it all stop. He covers his ears and closes his eyes tight. On the soft bed, it doesn’t hurt to sit up on his butt where before the floor had dug into his ischial tuberosities, and he rocks, drawing his knees into his chest. He just wants to get a handle on it all, to find a way to tune it all out._ _

__After a few minutes or an hour, Mac isn’t really sure, he manages to come up with a plan. Carefully, he silences the EKG before disconnecting the leads, and then grabs the IV stand for support. He hobbles the four steps to the light switch and flicks it off. The relief is instant._ _

__The clock on the wall, with its infernal ticking, is much harder to reach. He knows that he can’t stand on a chair — he’d fall. Instead, he leans hard against the bed and tries to lift the IV stand, but it’s too unwieldy and heavy with the pump. He barely gets it off the ground before he starts to list sideways._ _

__But Mac isn’t one given to quitting, and after three more attempts he knocks it to the ground. It clatters but Mac moves quickly. He pulls the batteries out of the back and stuffs the now silent clock into the back of a supply cabinet. The batteries he pockets, just in case he needs them later._ _

__Carefully, Mac climbs back into bed, studiously reconnecting everything. Once everything is set, he tucks his knees into his chest, and begins rocking while his fingers tap tap tap against his palms._ _

__It’s not a perfect solution, but at least the room is bearable now. It’ll have to do._ _

____

*****

It’s been almost two months and Jack hasn’t gotten a single night of solid sleep since Mac traded himself for Riley. The moment the struts touch the helipad, Jack’s out of the helo and tearing off towards the hospital doors. He pushes his way through corridors, Riley, Matty, and Bozer trailing behind him as he demands Mac’s location from the nurses’ station. 

_“He’s psychologically unstable and extremely malnourished. Try not to alarm him,”_ the nurse warns. Jack knows that Matty’s the only other person who understands Russian and he looks back to see her hands balled up tight, her eyes wide. 

“Let me talk to him first,” Jack says. Everyone else just nods.

The first thing Jack sees is a sign on the door _“Do not turn on lights.”_ He swallows and pushes the door open.

The figure on the bed is unrecognizable — bald, skeleton thin, and pale. If it weren’t for the way he’s rocking on the bed, his fingers flicking nonstop, Jack would check the name on the door again, just to make sure he has the right room. 

“Hey, Mac.”

Mac flinches, turns to look at Jack, and then turns away, shaking his head. 

Jack’s seen Mac overload before, when he gets quiet and far away. He’s seen Mac stim before, too, his fingers twitching or hands flapping, sometimes even rocking after being “on” for too long or having been through something too traumatic. But Mac has always been careful never to let anyone but Jack see, and even that was hard won. Everything about the way Mac’s moving now, though, tells Jack that this is different than anything he’s seen before. He’d figured the curt nurse at the desk just didn’t know Mac is autistic and mistook his stimming for something else. Now, seeing him, Jack isn’t so sure she was wrong.

Slowly, Jack takes a few steps towards the bed. The room isn’t big and he’s only a couple feet from Mac, but still he doesn’t respond. 

Jack takes a moment to look him over. Mac’s nose is crooked, obviously broken and never set, and his ankle is in a boot. There’s an IV and a tube going into one side of Mac’s nose. It’s hooked to a bag of milky white fluid. Jack wonders if Mac really is that sick or if he just can’t handle the texture or smell of the food.

“Hey, Mac. It’s me. Jack.”

Mac stims harder and shakes his head quicker, his eyes scrunching shut. Jack looks around for something to put in Mac’s hands, something to ease whatever he’s feeling, something for him to focus on. That’s when he sees the pile of bent paper clips on the bedside table. Some of the shapes Jack can make out, others are only half finished. None of them have the careful grace of his regular creations, though. Jack looks at Mac’s hands and wonders if he’s lost the strength to fold the little pieces of wire. It’s an absolutely sickening thought.

Jack looks back to Mac’s face, wondering how he can reach him, and sees tears running down his cheeks.

“Oh, come on, kid. I’m right here. I know they didn’t bean you that hard; you remember me.”

Near tears himself, Jack reaches out and lightly touches Mac on the arm. Instantly, Mac’s head snaps around to look at Jack, his eyes wide.

“Woah, hey. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I just- “ Jack doesn’t know where he was going with that but it doesn’t matter. 

Mac reaches his right hand out, managing to still the stimming long enough to hesitantly touch Jack.

“You- you’re _real_ ,” he whispers.

Jack nods, his own tears no longer avoidable, and moves until he’s sitting on the bed right next to Mac. How many times did Mac imagine Jack there? What did he see alone in that cell? What could be so convincing that he wouldn’t trust his own eyes or ears?

“I’m real, Mac. I’m right here and I’m not leaving.” 

It’s good that Jack’s so close now because Mac practically launches himself at Jack, his skinny arms wrapping tightly around Jack’s shoulders.

“I saw you. I saw you. You talked to me. I keep thinking you’d come.”

Jack can’t help the way his voice catches. “I’m sorry, kid. I’m sorry it took so long. This never should have happened.”

Mac’s still rocking as he clings to Jack, and Jack pulls him into his lap all the way, adjusting himself on the bed so that none of Mac’s tubes and wires are pulling uncomfortably. Then he matches Mac’s rhythm and rocks him himself. Slowly, Mac’s stimming slows to a level that Jack is more familiar with. He’s dreamt of bringing Mac home for so long but never once considered how bad the fallout would be. Now, he’s sitting in a hospital bed with a version of Mac that he barely recognizes, and he feels stupid and naive. 

“Hey, Mac. I know I don’t usually say this, but I love you, man.”

Mac doesn’t say anything and Jack can’t even put his finger on why, but it makes his heart hurt… until he realizes that Mac’s tapping his arm.

It’s Morse code, the same pattern over and over. 

.-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..- / - --- ---

It takes Jack a second to catch it. _Love you too._

Jack chokes on a sob. “M’gonna take you home to Mama, and she’ll feed you up right. Whatever you want. Put the blackout curtains up in the guest room and take out all the lightbulbs so they don’t hum. Get those bedsheets out that you like. Make you real comfy.”

Mac nods against Jack’s shoulder and he burrows his head closer into Jack’s chest. Jack looks towards the door to see Riley, Bozer, and Matty peering through the blinds in the window. Jack knows that whatever this takes to make it better, the Phoenix will have their backs. For now that’ll have to be enough.

*****

_Seventeen months later_

“Hey, buddy. Time to go meet the new arrivals.”

Mac grabs his hat and sunglasses and follows along behind Jack, his fingers softly tapping against his palms. Since he’s come to live with Jack and his family, they’ve been talking about acquiring a couple new horses, animals in need of rehab for Mac to work with. They’ve talked with rescues for the last six months and it’s exciting as much as it is terrifying.

Outside the sun is bright, and Mac pulls the bill of his baseball cap low to block out the light that comes in the top of his glasses. Mac recognizes the voices of the people he’s spoken with about the horses, though he still can’t tell their faces apart. It’s something he practices in therapy, but it’s been almost a year and a half. No one really expects him to get better at it anymore. 

Still, he follows Jack over to the trailer where Mama is already chatting up a storm with Liz and Kyle. 

“Hi,” he says quietly.

“Hi,” they reply in unison. He can hear the smiles in their voices even if he can’t read it in their faces. 

“Abby and JoJo are pretty keyed up from the ride. You think you can help us get them to the stable?” Liv asks.

Mac nods and walks over to the trailer. It has a padlock, but while Kyle flips through his keyring, Mac pulls a paperclip out of his pocket. He’s got it open in seconds. Behind him he hears Jack chuckle and it’s a thing of pride, he knows. Mac didn’t do much more than stim and go to PT for the first two months. It was Jack that brought him box after box of paperclips, and then locks, spare electronics, and a few tools. Slowly, Mac managed to transition a lot of his stims back to busywork, back to doing things that he could call productive.

“Has he always been like that? Is it, like, an autism thing or something?” Kyle asks.

“I can hear you,” Mac mutters loud enough to be heard. There’s a choked noise of surprise followed by a sheepish “sorry” that Mac ignores.

“Yeah,” Jack answers, ignoring Mac’s grumblings. “He’s a regular genius. Shoulda seen him in the Army. Never met a bomb he didn’t like.”

“Cairo,” Mac corrects and climbs into the trailer.

Inside, the horses snort and begin to stamp, their ears pinned back. “Shhh, shh,” Mac whispers. He moves slowly, digging around in his pockets for the treats he brought. He holds out the sugar cubes quietly, and eventually Abby, the little bay mare, nips one from his open palm. Then she huffs at him until he produces another. After that, it’s just a matter of grabbing her by the lead rope and walking her out the back. JoJo follows because that’s apparently that’s just what he does with Abby.

“Would you look at that? Kid’s already got them sorted out,” Jack says with a laugh.

Mac tunes out their conversation as he leads his two new charges into the stable. There’s a big stall, one where they knocked out the divider between two stalls, and Mac leads them in there. 

After their long trip, Mac feeds them, changes them out of the rescue group’s halters, and then brushes them down. He only realizes how long he’s been with the horses when the overhead lights kick on.

He turns and there’s Jack sitting in a lawn chair with a book of all things. “Jack?”

“You look like you’re having a good ol’ time there, kid. Didn’t wanna bother you.”

“Liv and Kyle?”

“They left a couple hours ago.”

Mac hates it. Hates that he can’t keep track of time, can’t socialize the way he used to, can’t take care of himself anymore. Hates that he’s the reason Jack quit the Phoenix Foundation. 

“You’re doing it again,” Jack accuses as he sits up and closes his book.

“Doing what?”

“Beating yourself up. I’ve told you already. I’m too old to be running around the world. Hell, I’m just old. I’m fifty-one, dude. I’m retired and instead of doing it alone, I got you. You’re not a hardship, Mac. Never have been, never will be. Now come on, Mama made cherry pie but if you don’t hurry that goddamn cat of hers is gonna get into it.” Jack pauses and points his book at Mac, “Don’t tell her I cussed her cat.”

Mac smiles and shakes his head. He wouldn’t think of it. 

Jack helps him tidy up the barn and refill the water for Abby, JoJo, and the others. It’s good, quiet work, keeps his hands and his mind busy. It’s not until they’re sitting down to dinner, that Mac realizes it. He’s still. His hands aren’t twitching, he’s not rocking, he’s just… sitting.

He looks up to see if Jack has noticed and Jack’s just staring back, tears on his cheeks. 

“They said it would help, but I didn’t think-” Jack shakes his head. “Look at me. You got me all worked up. Getting soft in my old age.”

Mac smiles. Maybe, if it means this much to Jack, if _he_ means this much to Jack, then maybe, _maybe_ he’s not so fucked up after all. It’s a thought that feels good, and that’s something he can work with.

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to clarify that Mac's autism is NOT the reason he "doesn't recover." He actually recovers remarkably well for someone with his level of trauma. Stimming is not pathological and should not be viewed as such. Furthermore, the absence of stimming at the end of the fic, and the characters' reaction to that, is not meant to indicate that Mac is better off without stimming. Rather it indicates to the characters a decrease in Mac's agitation to levels which he could correspond to his pre-torture levels. In that sense, it is a success for him personally. 
> 
> Please note that many, if not all, of Mac's post-torture behaviors and struggles are extremely common among neurotypical survivors of torture.


End file.
